Pirate Bay musters 10 million users

Yo-ho-ho and a DivX rip of Saw IV

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BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay has become the largest of its kind with 10 million users regularly exchanging up to one million individual torrents.

The figures are mind-boggling. To put them into some kind of perspective, think of it like this: there are now more people swapping torrents on The Pirate Bay than there are people living in Greater London. Or how about this: the Pirate Bay now boasts more users than the entire population of Sweden, where the service happens to be based.

The growth of Bittorrent

Commenting on the figures, The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde said: "We're very happy to be part of all of this, and hope our users keep sharing those files!" Before adding, rather ominously, "We're looking to break 20 million as well."

Of course, if Swedish prosecutors get their way, it won't go that far. While previous police raids on The Pirate Bay's servers in 2006 achieved little, the Swedish public prosecutor is reported to be preparing criminal charges against the site which could be delivered later this week.

Reuters reports that Swedish public prosecutor Hakan Roswall is set to charge the site's owners with accessory and conspiracy to break copyright law, with charges to be filed on 31 January.

"It's not merely a search engine. It's an active part of an action that aims at, and also leads to, making copyright protected material available," Roswall told Reuters.

The Pirate Bay hits back

However, The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde replied by branding the charges "ridiculous", adding that he believed there was "no legal ground" for the charges.

Sunde has vowed to keep the site up, regardless of any verdict, claiming that The Pirate Bay's servers and infrastructure are now scattered around the globe to prevent any one country from being able to shut it down.

But regardless of whether the Swedish prosecution proves successful, the site could eventually end up facing a more general backlash - especially if it continues to grow at its present rate.

Given that many broadband customers enjoy a less-than-speedy connection due, at least in part, to present levels of BitTorrent activity, things could eventually come to a head. Whereas a lack of sympathy for the film studios and record labels directly affected by copyright infringement is unlikely to stir many people into action, the thought of 20 million teenage 'pirates' hogging all available bandwidth might.